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When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

Yann Martel

There is no doubt in my mind that that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul.
YANN MARTEL

Generations Seeing Shock Soul
I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people’s minds.
YANN MARTEL

Mind People Stories
Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.
YANN MARTEL

Dramatic Special Unlimited
The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?
YANN MARTEL

Life Travel Understanding
I can’t live for more than four years outside of Canada. I’m Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
YANN MARTEL

Country Four People Years
A zoo is not an ideal place for an animal – of course the best place for a chimp is the wilds of Tanzania – but a good zoo is a decent, acceptable place.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Course Jail Tanzania Zoos
I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.
YANN MARTEL

Earth Expression Grace
If you write genre fiction, you follow the rules, and you have to follow them because readers expect that.
YANN MARTEL

Fiction Genre Writing
If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers.
YANN MARTEL

Animal City Crocodile Fall Ostriches
Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Important Training
If you don’t have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?
YANN MARTEL

Dream Ideas Reality
We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
YANN MARTEL

Boat Figuratively Literally
Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
YANN MARTEL

Doing Good Happy Knows
The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.
YANN MARTEL

Boredom Opposites Swings
In a movie, you need good actors, whereas in a book, you don’t, unless you have a really bad imagination. In a book, your imagination will do the acting for you. Also, the process of revelation is often different. Tension is achieved in a different way.
YANN MARTEL

Acting Book Imagination
India is a place where all stories are possible. You forget that the imagination can take hold of anything and contemplate it and love it and describe it.
YANN MARTEL

Country Imagination Love Possible

When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

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When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

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Popular Authors

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